Regency Christmas Proposals Read online

  Acclaim for the authors of

  REGENCY CHRISTMAS PROPOSALS

  GAYLE WILSON

  Anne’s Perfect Husband

  “This high-action plot careens along the edge between traditional Regency and gritty, intense historical. This innovative mix carries themes on the healing powers of love and survival.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  The Heart’s Wager

  “Gayle Wilson has achieved an uncommon, and uncommonly successful, hybrid of Regency, action-adventure and romance that makes for nonstop entertainment.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  AMANDA McCABE

  High Seas Stowaway

  “Amanda McCabe has gifted us twice over—nothing is better than hearing about friends from other stories. High Seas Stowaway is a fast-paced, exciting novel. Amanda McCabe has done it again—a wonderful tale!”

  —Cataromance

  A Sinful Alliance

  “Richly detailed and brimming with historical events and personages, McCabe’s tale weaves together history and passion perfectly.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  CAROLE MORTIMER

  Lady Arabella’s Scandalous Marriage

  “Mortimer excels at producing strong, independent heroines, and Arabella fits the bill when she comes up against London’s most notorious rake.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Snowbound with the Billionaire

  “[This] novella…is an excellent example of this international bestselling author’s storytelling prowess!”

  —Cataromance

  GAYLE WILSON

  is a two-time RITA® Award winner. In addition to this, Gayle’s books have garnered more than fifty other awards and nominations, including the Daphne du Maurier Award for the Best Single Title Romantic Suspense of 2008, awarded to Victim, her most recent novel from MIRA Books.

  Gayle has written forty-one novels and four novellas for Harlequin Enterprises, including works for Harlequin Historical, Harlequin Intrigue, Special Releases, HQN Books and MIRA. Please visit her website at www.BooksByGayleWilson.com.

  AMANDA McCABE

  wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including a RITA® Award, an RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award, a Booksellers Best, a National Readers’ Choice Award, and a Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma with a menagerie of animals and loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs, and watching the Food Network—even though she doesn’t cook. Visit her at www.ammandamccabe.com and www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com

  CAROLE MORTIMER

  USA TODAY international bestselling author Carole Mortimer was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written more than one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Enterprises. Carole has six sons: Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, “I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends, as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.”

  Regency Christmas Proposals

  GAYLE WILSON

  AMANDA McCABE

  CAROLE MORTIMER

  CONTENTS

  THE SOLDIER’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

  by Gayle Wilson

  Letter to Reader

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Epilogue

  SNOWBOUND AND SEDUCED

  by Amanda McCabe

  Letter to Reader

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  CHRISTMAS AT MULBERRY HALL

  by Carole Mortimer

  Letter to Reader

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  THE SOLDIER’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

  Gayle Wilson

  Dear Reader,

  Although I’ve written several novellas through the years, this is the first Christmas anthology I’ve been privileged to be part of. Like so many of you, however, I, too, love to read the seasonal stories these contain because this time of year is so very special. It always evokes memories of my childhood and particularly of my father, who made sure that no matter how trying the times or how little we had materially, we still were able to enjoy the rich traditions of this holiday. Christmas was, and always will be for me, a season of love and miracles.

  The Soldier’s Christmas Miracle celebrates both. Brutalized by battle, Guy Wakefield has known the depths of suffering and despair. But because of the whispered words of a stranger, he has never lost faith in his ability to overcome whatever obstacles life throws in his path. The courage of Isabella Stowe has also been severely tested, not only by war but by the deprivations and loneliness of its aftermath, creating a singularly strong and determined woman. The trials these two endured have stripped from them everything except their pride—something both cling to desperately, despite the threat it offers to their one true chance at happiness.

  I hope you will enjoy Guy and Isabella’s journey of discovery. I also hope that your own Christmas will be filled with love, peace and joy—miracles enough, I think, for all of us!

  Sincerely,

  Gayle

  First, last, and always, to my own soldier hero

  Prologue

  ‘It’s water.’

  A gentle hand raised his head as the rim of a metal cup was placed against his parched lips. He drank greedily, only now aware of the depth of his thirst—a sensation that had been buried under the pain of the burns and his other wounds.

  When the cup was taken away, he asked the question he’d wondered about for hours. ‘Is it morning?’

  ‘It’s still night,’ the same voice answered.

  Feminine. English. And cultured, he assessed automatically.

  ‘More?’

  ‘Please.’ The need to keep her beside him—to keep the darkness at bay—was greater even than his thirst.

  They had bandaged his eyes shortly after the battle, but by then the darkness had already closed around him. And it was that and that alone he feared.

  When the cup was removed from his lips a second time, he knew that she would leave him, too. Just like the friends who’d brought him here to await the ships that would take the wounded back to England.

  And when she was gone the terrifying blackness would become omnipresent again.

  ‘Could you stay a while?’ he heard himself beg, although he recognised the request for the cowardice it represented. ‘Unless there are others who need water…?’

  ‘No, you’re the last,’ the woman said, not unkindly.

  ‘I could hear it,’ he said, to keep her talking. ‘The sound the cup makes against the side of the bucket. But then no one came.’

  ‘You were so still, I think everyone believed you were sleeping.’

 
Given the extent of his injuries, they would probably have considered that a blessing. It would have been, of course, but he hadn’t been able to sleep. The thought of what might lie ahead had destroyed any hope of that.

  He had promised himself that no one would ever hear him complain. He was, after all, a soldier, and others had suffered far more than he.

  But now, whether it was the thought of home or the anonymity of their situation, he found that he needed to tell her. To acknowledge, if only to this unknown voice in his darkness, the true depth of his cowardice.

  His lips began to tilt upward at the ridiculousness of what he was about to say. That movement was halted by the painful pull on the burned skin of his cheek, but the words of his confession spilled out almost of their own accord.

  ‘Like a child, I find I’m afraid of the dark.’

  He waited, expecting some bracing homily or even a rebuke for his weakness. She was silent instead, for so long that he was once more aware of the sounds of human suffering that surrounded them.

  ‘You would willingly accept water from my hand, but not its guidance?’

  ‘Not if…’ He hesitated, and then said what he knew to be the truth. ‘Not if I were always to be guided.’

  Never to ride again. Or to dance. Never to walk unfettered through a meadow. Never to see the faces of his children.

  His throat thickened with that thought, although he could not remember thinking about his future progeny before in his entire life. There had always been other things more pressing. Friends. His regiment. The intoxicating pull of the dangers they faced daily, often with a confidence that bordered on insanity.

  Now a vision of the remaining years of his life stretched before him—a montage of dependence and invalidism. Death, even here, far from everything he had ever known or loved, would be preferable to that.

  ‘Because that would make you less of a man?’

  Was that what he feared? Emasculation by infirmity?

  ‘Would it?’ he asked.

  She was a woman. Surely she could provide the answer to that question better than he.

  ‘I think that would depend upon the man you were before.’

  He examined the words, using the mental exercise it offered to keep the relentless pain at bay. He knew his reputation, of course. Fearless. It was a word that had been used often enough to describe some reckless endeavour he’d undertaken without a second’s thought.

  And that was the crux. He had never thought beyond that moment between life and death. Had never considered the possibility of a life unlike the one he’d known. Did he have courage enough to live under the restraints he’d been imagining since they’d wrapped the cloth around his eyes?

  ‘It’s easy enough to live young and free and strong.’ The voice beside him echoed his thoughts. ‘But without any one of those…I think that life would require a man of remarkable courage.’ The last had been so softly spoken he’d had to strain to hear the final word.

  And then, in the stillness that had finally fallen among the wounded, came the sound of distant bells, their joyous clarity vastly different from the noises of the suffering.

  A celebration? Some hard-won victory in a battle he had not been part of?

  ‘What is it? What’s happening?’

  ‘Christmas.’ The woman’s voice was filled with wonder. ‘It’s Christmas morning. I had forgotten.’ The last words contained a breath of amusement.

  ‘Christmas,’ he echoed softly.

  Memories evoked by the word invaded his brain, pushing out the darkness that had seemed to swallow up all the goodness he had known in his life. A thousand images, foreign to those of the last few years, bright and gay and dearly familiar, were there instead.

  ‘The season of miracles,’ she said. ‘Perhaps…’

  Again the words faded, but there was no longer any need of them. She had already uttered the only ones that mattered.

  Through the long days and longer nights that followed, he clung to them rather than to the unspoken suggestion that miracles still sometimes occurred. I think that life would require a man of remarkable courage.

  And in the years that followed, that dauntless courage and it alone was all he asked for in his prayers.

  Chapter One

  ‘A post, my lord. I believe it may be the reply you’ve been awaiting.’

  Rodgers’ words created a tightness in Guy Wakefield’s chest he couldn’t quite explain. While it was true he’d been waiting for a response to an enquiry he’d made, he had no reason to believe that this, any more than the dozens of other avenues he’d pursued during the last five years, would provide the information he sought.

  ‘Would you read it to me, Rodgers?’ He was pleased that his voice reflected none of his inner turmoil.

  ‘Of course, my lord.’ There was a slight delay before his butler added, ‘The candles, my lord. If I may?’

  ‘Of course,’ Guy agreed, waiting again until Rodgers had lit enough to read the letter by.

  The butler cleared his throat before he began, the unfamiliar words laboriously sounded out, while the easier ones were rushed. Rodgers was proud of his ability to read, unusual for someone in service, and it had proved invaluable to his master since his return from the Peninsula.

  Major General Roland Abernathy’s first paragraph said all that was polite regarding the Viscount Easton’s military record, and expressed a hope for his lordship’s continued good health. It wasn’t until the second paragraph that the reason for their correspondence was addressed. And, despite Rodgers’ stumbling performance, the answer Guy had sought was rather quickly delivered.

  If one could consider five years ‘quickly.’

  ‘The only English gentlewoman I am aware of in St Jean de Luz during the period about which you enquire was Captain William Stowe’s wife, Isabella. I cannot, of course, be certain this is the lady you seek, but I can tell you that on several occasions Mrs Stowe, whose grandmother was Portuguese, proved invaluable to the allied efforts. I am also unable to provide you with Mrs Stowe’s location. As she is now a widow, and entitled to her husband’s pension, it is quite possible Captain Stowe’s regiment may be able to give you her direction.’

  Although Rodgers continued to read the Major General’s closing remarks, Guy found that his mind had stuck on those salient to his quest. He now had a name for the woman whom he credited with saving his life that December night. Isabella Stowe, whose grandmother had been Portuguese. And who was now a widow.

  The images that formed in his brain as a result of that information were contrary to those he had previously entertained. Whatever else she might be, the woman whose words had rescued him from what could only be described as the depths of despair was unlikely to be typically English. Other than in one important respect.

  Like hundreds of others widowed by the war against Napoleon, she might very well be living in straitened circumstances. That, at least, was a situation he could do something about.

  And even if she were not, he could at last express his gratitude for what she had done for him. That, of course, was the impulse that had driven his enquiries. Now that he had a name, the object of his search seemed finally within his grasp.

  Isabella lowered her head, closing her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. It didn’t help her headache. Or the reality the stack of bills before her represented.

  There was no help for those, it seemed. Not in her late husband’s pension and certainly not in her own failed efforts to supplement that meagre income. And if she could no longer put food on the table—

  ‘A good cup a tea will soon put you to rights, my dear.’ Her housekeeper pushed aside the shopkeepers’ duns with the familiarity of long service to set the teapot down on the desk before her. ‘Storm’s a-brewing. That’s all that’s wrong with your head,’ she went on cheerfully as she poured. ‘My grandfather was the same way. He could always tell you about the weather.’ There was a storm brewing, all right, Isabella acknowledged as she lifted the steami
ng cup. One that didn’t involve wind or rain.

  ‘What did Mr Winters say to you when he delivered this?’ She raised her eyes to assess the honesty of her servant’s reply.

  ‘I gave him a piece of my mind, I did,’ Hannah said stoutly. ‘The likes of him making demands on Mrs Stowe, I said. You should be ashamed, I told him. And he should be.’

  ‘For wanting to be paid? You can hardly blame him for that. He has a family to feed.’

  ‘And have you ever not paid him? As long as we’ve given him our trade? He’ll get his money. I told him so, too.’

  Except this time there was a very real possibility that he wouldn’t, Isabella acknowledged. Neither he nor the others who had given her credit through the winter. A winter during which the roof had had to be replaced and the apothecary had been called for both Hannah and her husband, who saw to the workings of her household beyond the kitchen and the parlour.

  After five years there was nothing left of William’s estate—no income at all other than the pittance due her from his regiment because of his service. And that was nowhere near enough to maintain this house, small though it was, or provide a livelihood for her staff.

  ‘There now,’ Hannah said. ‘That’s better, isn’t it?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Isabella managed to find a smile for the housekeeper, who had been like family these last few years.

  How Hannah and Ned would get on if she were forced to sell the house, Isabella couldn’t imagine. They were well up in years and, as evidenced by this past winter’s illnesses, no longer strong enough for the demands of service.